Dream away
by Mirgaxus
Summary: Features Aurors Lupin and Black investigating the case and bonding through gardening in their free time, while a new, chirpy co-worker James Potter annoys Remus at his part time job at a bakery and a big, black dog is breaking his heart by suddenly no longer trusting him. Or: The one where Remus's head is a messy place.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** Thank you Wereflamingo for betareading! As usual, this is a crossposted piece and can be found at AO3 too (and perhaps soon in Wattpad as well).

WIP, going to be roughly 4-5 chapters. Wolfstar.

* * *

Remus liked gardening.

It was relaxing. He had no clue what he was doing, but who cared. In the years after the school ended he had to find something to do, and after he had moved to this cottage, he made this garden his own little project.

James and Lily had their children, Sirius had his bike, Peter had his small company that he was so proud of, and Remus had his small backyard garden.

Life was good and everybody was content.

Remus was pulling yet another vegetable up that he honestly didn't remember planting, nor did he recognize it as he was turning it around in his hands (what kind of a vegetable has rainbow stripes?), when he heard footsteps. He gave up identifying the strange plant and looked up.

Sirius leaned against the garden gate, looking out of place with his black leather jacket and boots next to the lightly painted wood with flowery pastel ornaments.

Never out of place, Remus corrected his thoughts with his heart aching, not here. This is where he should always be, standing in the sunlight, looking so young and carefree, smiling at him so beautifully.

"This is so you," said Sirius and shook his head. His eyes roamed around the small garden. "You could literally be doing anything in this world, and here you are, isolated and weeding your goddamn carrots."

"I'm not alone. You are here, aren't you?" He didn't add that he had no idea what he was weeding, but it they certainly wasn't carrots.

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. He huffed.

Remus smiled, amused and feeling such affection for the man. "I've never been alone or 'isolated' since I got to know you lot. Don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, seriously."

He was teasing, expecting perhaps a groan at the old joke, but all he got was sudden sad shadows on Sirius's face. "You once said that your perfect world would be 'never without one of us', but I didn't believe that you'd still think so. Where did we take the wrong turn, then?"

Remus had to look away from Sirius. His words didn't belong here, not in this garden, not in this sunny day. There was sharp pain hidden behind those words that could cut a heart open that made him want to steer away. "Stop being so weird and come help me. Dinner won't make itself."

After a moment he heard the gate open. Sirius kneeled beside him. "So. What are we having for dinner?" A pause, then, "What the _heck_ is that?"

"I don't know," said Remus. "I was hoping you could help me identify it. I'd rather not try to cook it before knowing whether it's poisonous or not."

"It's _your_ garden, mate," muttered Sirius and poked at the rainbow coloured plant that distantly resembled an octopus. "Bloody hell. Are you doing illegal cross-species experiments here or what? I _knew_ that there had to be something more interesting going on here than just carrots and potatoes."

Remus sighed. "I guess I'll research it later. Let's go inside and see if there's anything edible there."

He put the weird plant inside a sack that he had been filling with the strange products from his garden the whole afternoon. The sack was almost full and looked unpleasantly heavy. He glanced at Sirius. "Help me carry this inside?"

"Of course. That's what I'm here for, after all. To help carry your burdens, which apparently are in the form of disfigured veggies."

Remus rolled his eyes and shoved him slightly. "No need to be so dramatic. It's just a bag of veggies." He took a good hold of the canvas and looked at Sirius. "On three?"

"Nothing is ever just a bag of veggies with you," said Sirius, with an odd, crooked smile. "You know, you do fit here in the garden. You're like an onion. Layers and layers of jumpers and secrets. One."

"I could say the same about you. Well. Minus the jumpers. Two."

"I'd look dashing in your jumpers. Three."

The bag _was_ heavy, but together, they managed to carry it inside the little cottage.

* * *

After the bag of questionable vegetables had been abandoned in the living room (it was the room closest to the garden, and the rug was already old and spotty anyway), the men went to the kitchen.

"Cozy," said Sirius, looking around. "Reminds me of your parents' place."

"That's what you always say when you come around," said Remus absentmindedly while rummaging through the fridge and the freezer.

"Oh, do I?"

There were fish fingers and fries in the freezer, which wasn't exactly the sort of the meal he had been envisioning for them today. He must have forgotten to go to the store. "Just before you start to badger me about moving into your place."

Sirius laughed. "That does sound like me."

"Do you mind fries and fish fingers?"

"Sounds like a delicious, authentic countryside meal. Did you grow the fries in the garden?"

Remus threw the bag of frozen fries at his head, but Sirius caught it with a grin. Remus smiled and said, "Shut your mouth and help me with the meal, will you?"

"You are a shame to all backyard gardeners. What do you want me to do? And by the way, why _don't_ you live with me?"

"Turn the oven on. And you know why, you berk."

"Muggle way, eh? And I don't know, so please go ahead and enlighten me."

"I've told you once, and I'm glad you took it well and it didn't change anything between us, but you are not going to make me say it again."

Sirius raised his eyebrow and looked at him sideways while putting the fries on the oven pan. "Now I'm intrigued. Maybe I forgot and you should tell me again..?"

Remus gave him a flat look.

Sirius raised his hands and smiled disarmingly. "Fine. I'm sorry. But I'm certain that I told you then that it wouldn't matter, and that you could still come live with me, whatever it was. And why would that have changed since then?" There was a pause, and Sirius hesitated before continuing in a more solemn tone. "You've never been good on your own. And neither have I. Maybe we could have avoided this whole mess if we had stuck together." Sirius swallowed. "Fuck, it's so easy to keep forgetting that this isn't… And then… " His voice faded away and his eyes became slightly unfocused, distant.

"You are in a weird mood today," said Remus lightly, trying to hide how much Sirius's rambling was starting worry him.

"I'm sorry. It's been a bloody weird day. Days."

"What happened?"

Sirius looked at him and shook his head slowly. "I'll tell you later. Let's just… enjoy this. Let's finish dinner. Because this is _nice_." He took a pause again, hesitated, then blurted out, "I've missed you."

Remus reached out and laid his hand on Sirius's shoulder, smiling comfortingly. He ignored the way Sirius flinched at the touch, and then looked down at his hand with surprise. "Hey. Don't get sappy now. I've not gone anywhere."

Sirius grasped his hand and held onto it tight. There was pain in his eyes when he looked back up again at Remus's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just scared that I'm going to muck this up for you, Moony. I… I should have let someone else come here first. But I had to see you. I didn't think it would be like this. Lily warned me, but I didn't really get it until there you were, just... bloody weeding your mutant garden and smiling up at me like nothing was wrong. You looked so _happy_."

His words twisted Remus's stomach and he swallowed. He tasted something metallic in his mouth and he swallowed again to get rid of it. He tried to ignore Sirius's words, tried to dismiss them as mad rambling. He looked away and said tightly, "The fries are burning."

Sirius blinked, and looked away towards the oven. His mouth twitched. "I just put them in. You made them burn."

"I didn't," said Remus indignantly because he _hadn't_. "It's a… powerful oven. A fast one."

Sirius gave him a fond smile and shook his head, which seemed to clear away the sombre thoughts out of his mind, before letting go of his hand and stepping away to take the fries out of the oven. "I'm sorry, I got carried away. What about the fish fingers?"

Remus looked at the fish finger box on the counter. "We should have put them in there with the fries." It wasn't just Sirius who was weird today, he reflected. It felt like his mind was nowhere and everywhere, and things kept slipping by.

Sirius shrugged, not looking bothered at all. He took out a plate from the cupboard, dropped the slightly burnt fries on it, and then opened the fish finger box. "I don't think our fries will get a chance to get cold before these are done, not with this super oven."

"Probably not. Can you help me with the cutlery?"

Sirius gave him a curious look, but nodded. They worked silently for a moment, laying down plates, forks, glasses and the milk on the table.

Remus sat down at the table while Sirius went to take out the fish fingers. Sirius didn't look at him while saying with forced lightness, "You are asking me for help. A lot. First in the garden, then with the food."

"Can't just let you stand there and make me do all the work."

"Don't get me wrong. It was just an observation. I'm happy that you are asking. You usually never let me know when you need help."

"I need your help now," said Remus with desperation, his voice rough and needy, and then he blinked and wondered where that had come from. He looked out of the kitchen window. The dark clouds were gathering in the sky. There was going to be a storm. It was good that they had got the vegetables out of the garden before the night. It would have been unpleasant to take them out from the muddy ground.

Sirius put down the oven pan and turned to face him. His hand was shaking as he reached up in a very Prongs-like gesture of nervously running his hand through his hair. "I want to help you. I don't know how. I don't know what I should do."

"It's going to rain," Remus said absentmindedly, his voice flat and distant. He nodded towards the window. "Did you come with your bike?" If so, they should go and take the bike inside the shed.

Sirius sat down heavily across the table and stared at him for a long moment like he thought that Remus had lost his mind. Then he shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair again, and looked like _he_ was starting to lose his mind. "Part of me just wants to leave you here to be happy. _I_ want to stay here and be happy with you, because right now, everything fucking sucks out there, and I want to forget about it all too. But we can't, Remus, we can't. I don't know why you turned on us, but I _refuse_ to believe... You were never a killer, Remus. You would die before hurting anyone. So I think they forced you, and maybe, maybe you can give us a good enough reason to give you a second chance. You _can't_ want to go back to them now, I don't believe it'd be possible for you to have changed _that_ much. We are working on getting you out of here, but… I think we are all scared about the afterwards. What we will do with you. I can't… just _why_ , Remus?"

Remus felt something dripping from his lips down his chin. He raised his finger to touch his lips and when he drew it back, he saw that it was blood.

Sirius was looking at him horrified. "Moony… I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

In the distance, the thunder roared.

' _Don't chase the dog!'_ screamed Bellatrix Lestrange from the doorway, and Sirius jumped up from the chair, knocking it down with a loud crash. Her shrill, cold laugh hurt Remus's ears and he cowered, shut his eyes. ' _Stop! Come back, your job is not finished here!'_

Remus didn't know which one was shaking worse - him or the house. Perhaps it was the reality around them that was shaking, he thought distantly, or his sanity, because nothing of this made sense. The blood kept dripping from his jaw, it felt like his whole mouth was full of it, and his long, pointy wolf teeth ached.

With all his willpower Remus managed to open his eyes, ignore Bellatrix and look straight at Sirius, who seemed frozen in place and helpless. In the corner of his eye he saw Bellatrix in the doorway, cackling, pointing her wand at him.

Just as the world around them started to melt away into darkness, he pleaded, "Padfoot. Please help me".

"We will," said Sirius in a broken voice, "we will, Moony, I'm so sorry. Just hang in here. Everything will be alright. We'll figure this out and-"

The house with the beautiful garden, Sirius, and Bellatrix melted away.


	2. Chapter 2

The smell of chocolate was driving Remus mad.

Yes, he tended to carry the stuff with him everywhere and it wasn't like he was _against_ chocolate, but right now he felt like the smell had become so overbearing that it had overpassed its physical limitations of being a 'smell'.

He was certain that he could _feel and hear_ the chocolate at this point.

But what could one do, with steep student loans forcing them to take any job they could. Even if it meant a part time job at a bakery specializing in chocolatey desserts.

Remus knew perfectly well that there were worse jobs in the world and that he should have been grateful for his definitely very first world problem of being surrounded by too many sweets. But it was a Friday evening and Remus was forced to share a shift with his most annoying chirpy co-worker, so he was going to defend his right to be grumpy and self-pitying over absurd things inside his own goddamn head.

"Chocolate," repeated James brightly, from where he was sitting on top of the counter, next to the cash register, very much against all the hygiene protocols. He was looking around Madam Puddifoot's renowned bakery, his eyes twinkling with amusement. At least he had his hairnet on (which, of course, was decorated with overly cute drawings of chocolate hearts), even though Remus doubted that it was doing much good, not with his unruly hair sticking stubbornly to every direction from underneath it.

"Chocolate," muttered Remus darkly, "bloody, goddamn overhyped disgusting stuff."

There was lots of it. The walls were covered with paintings and 'artful' photographs of different varieties. There were dozens of overgrown cocoa plants in pots along the walls and in between the tables of the spacious room where the customers could sit down for some coffee and chocolate. The display fridge had nothing but chocolate pastries and treats.

Remus scowled at all of it. He _hated_ his job.

"I knew you secretly hated it," said James, not losing any of his bright, annoyingly good mood. The bastard seemed to be trying to hold back from laughing at Remus's discomfort. " _I knew it._ All these years of accepting the stuff from him, 'oh thank you, that's so sweet of you', and _I knew_ that you were just bloody faking it. You probably were secretly throwing it all out of the dorm window the moment we turned our backs."

"I don't _hate_ it," argued Remus, "but bit less of it would be nice. I feel like I'm drowning in it here. I feel like I have some up in my nostril."

"But I hear it's good for you," said James oh so sincerely and innocently. "Calms the nerves. Eases the mental anguish." He sounded like he was quoting someone.

Remus glared at him. James lost it, and Remus threw a piece of yesterday's chocolate cake at him.

The bell rang above the door as a new customer stepped inside. As always, Remus threw a quick glance towards the door to see if the person _this time_ was-

It was. Remus looked away quickly and grabbed the calendar from the counter. Something to do, something to look normal. He leaned against the counter and started to flip through the notebook, not really focusing on any of it.

Get a grip, you are behaving like a teenager with his first crush, he told himself sternly.

"Blimey. What- that's _Sirius_. But he shouldn't be here..."

Remus glanced up to see James staring at the young, _gorgeous_ man who had stepped inside and who was heading towards his usual spot by the window. "You know him?" he said, trying to sound casual.

James whipped his head around and stared at him. "You _don't?_ "

"I, er, I mean," said Remus eloquently and turned away again. He felt the tips of his ears warming. He shrugged. "I don't know him. But he's a regular, he comes by every now and then."

'Every now and then' meaning at least once a day, sometimes twice. He wondered why James hadn't noticed the man before, especially if he knew him from somewhere, but then he remembered that James had only started to work here last week. Maybe this was the first time his work hours coincided with the man - Sirius - visiting the bakery.

"Oh, he's a _regular?_ Visits your dreams- er, I mean, your bakery a lot, does he now?"

"Shut up," muttered Remus, "and it's not _my_ bakery, I just work here, okay?"

"Why isn't he coming over? Isn't that kind of weird, just coming in and then heading to the table?"

"He can do whatever he wants."

"Oh, I'm sure he can. I'm sure you are _all_ for that."

"I _meant_ that it's not like the tables are full. Doesn't hurt anyone if he wants to just sit down for a minute or two before ordering anything." And besides, Remus was more than happy with ogling the man from afar. If only James wasn't being such an annoying git about it.

"I could go and ask him over. Introduce you two to each other. Invite him to come take some free samples of the today's desserts," James said with a lewd wink.

Remus knew his whole face was red. "Has anyone ever told you that you are the most annoying piece of human existence that ever existed?"

"Sometimes. Usually people say that about Padfoot, tho. But give me a break here. You _like_ him. I _knew_ it. I want my well deserved gloating, especially after all those years you guys gave me about Lily."

"Are you twelve? We are at work. I'll report you for workplace bullying."

Instead of rolling his eyes James regarded him, bit of wistfulness making its way into his expression. "Nah, I'm not twelve, but I guess I wish we all were." He looked away from Remus and regarded the bakery. "When everything is over, we should do this for real. Open a cafe and laze around every day just talking shit."

"Sorry to break your dreams, but I'm going to be done with this 'career' after I get my degree," said Remus. "I won't want to see another bakery or customer service job _ever,_ if I can help it. _Anything_ but this hell." Sometimes he wondered if this job was worth it. Dumbledore had recommended him for the job, and at the time he had been glad to take it up, but recently he had started to feel like perhaps nothing was really worth enduring the long hours, the pain, the loneliness, the constant threat-

James's voice brought him back to the reality, back to their conversation. "Well. We could keep our cafe open just for few hours a week. So it wouldn't be like real work, since we would just be doing it for fun. And since it would be our cafe we could just kick out any potentially annoying customers. Slytherins and such."

"Could we also kick out any potentially annoying co-workers?" said Remus, with a pointed look at James.

James snickered and leaned over to ruffle his hair. "You are so cute when you are pissed off."

Remus was going to reply to him, but then he noticed that Sirius had stood up from his table and looked like he was contemplating on coming over. Remus's eyes locked with other man's and he smiled nervously, hoping that the smile looked more normal than how wibbly wobbly it felt on his face.

Sirius smiled at him slowly from across the room, and Remus felt giddy.

James was shaking his head at him and chuckling. "You are _so_ in trouble, mate." He punched Remus slightly on the shoulder. "Good to see that you are doing alright here, but I'm not going to sit around and watch where this will go. We gotta have _some_ boundaries."

Remus shot him a glare, but smiled a bit. "See you. And… thanks, Prongs." He wasn't completely certain what he was thanking him for, but it felt… a right thing to do.

James smiled cryptically. "Anytime, Moony. Also, I want you to know, for what it's worth, that I haven't believed for a second that you could be anywhere else than firmly on our side. We are the Marauders, for fuck's sake. One for all, and all for one, and all that bullshit. And I know that soon Pads is going to realize how ridiculous that idea was. He's just messed up and scared."

Remus was confused. "That's the Three Musketeers, not 'Marauders'."

James shook his head, jumped down from the counter and reached over to ruffle his hair again. At the last moment he seemed to change his mind and instead pulled Remus into a tight, rough hug. "Don't worry your pretty head about it, Moons. Everything is going to be okay," James said, and then let go as suddenly as he had assaulted him with his easy affection. He turned away to walk through the 'staff only' door to the kitchen, but as he was opening the door, he turned away one last time to wink at Remus. "Have fun, don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Remus raised his eyebrow. "Not sure there's a lot you wouldn't do."

"Got me there," James said with a grin. "See you. You've got a prat whose pants need some serious seducing off, and I've got another prat waiting to get mercilessly teased. Ah, the sweet, sweet revenge..." With a chuckle he added, "I'll also tell him to ease up with the chocolate. I can see that the scented candles were _not_ a good idea."

Remus pulled a horrified face at the thought of _chocolate scented candles_ , and James disappeared into the kitchen with the gleeful mad cackle, which wrapped itself comfortingly around Remus with its familiarity, its echoes dancing pleasantly around.

He heard James's clattering with the pans and cauldrons from the kitchen, and felt safe knowing that he wasn't alone, that his friend was right there, just behind the door.

He let the warm feeling push away the bakery and pull him down to the deeper, peaceful, dreamless sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes:** I'm grateful for my amazing betas, Wereflamingo and NachoDiablo, for their help with the chapter!

Writing this has been some of the most fun I've ever had with fics, and I hope that you readers are feeling even a fraction of that fun while reading :)

* * *

Remus had always been proud about how _good_ he was with handling dogs, but he was becoming ready to admit that perhaps he wasn't up to this particular case.

He was sitting on the floor, elbows on his knees and leaning against the wall opposite a row of kennels. Inside the kennel in front of him, a big, black dog was looking at him warily from behind the bars. The food bowl in front of it remained untouched, despite the drool that kept slowly dripping from its jaws.

Remus sighed and rubbed his temples.

The police had dropped the dog at the shelter a few months ago, after they had found him living with an escaped convict. Everyone had pets, even criminals, and this hadn't been the first time that an animal had been brought to the Gryffindor Rescue Center under such circumstances.

The police had been able to give Remus vague information surrounding the dog's past. The poor beast had certainly faced its share of neglect and abuse, and it showed in its reluctance to trust _anyone_. Police Officer Potter had finally been able to goad it out from under the convict's house, but Remus didn't want to think what could have happened if someone less patient or kind hearted had been in the charge of the operation.

If Potter hadn't paid mind to the beast, it would probably have starved down there.

After long weeks at the shelter, and gently yet persistently pushing at the dog's comfort zone, Remus had thought that he and Padfoot had been off to a good start, but last week they were suddenly back at where they had started, Padfoot watching his every move with those suspicious, wary eyes.

He wished that he could just _ask_ the dog what had happened between them to cause this sudden rift. The look of hurt and lack of trust in those intelligent eyes haunted Remus at night, when he was trying to sleep. During the day, he felt those eyes on his back, watching him intently whenever he was working inside the kennel section of the building.

On particularly bad nights, he thought in frustration that perhaps there wasn't even a reason for this sudden change — perhaps the dog was just utterly mad, finally showing its deep scars from its difficult earlier life.

"You need to eat," he said gently, and Padfoot let out a low, deep growl. "And you need to learn to trust me again." Or you'll never get out of here alive, thought Remus, but didn't want to say it aloud. It had been a long while since they had had to give up on a dog's rehabilitation.

"Remus?"

Remus looked at the doorway. "Oh, hi Peter," he said with a smile. "Come in."

His friend stepped inside the room, eyes jumping skittishly around. A couple of the other dogs roused inside their kennels and gave a few rough barks at him, which made him flinch visibly.

Peter had never been a fan of big, loud canines. Which made it even more surprising to find him here in the evening, of his own free will. "What are you doing here?" Remus asked him.

"I came to check up on you, because, um" said Peter, and looked around the room, like he was searching for the correct words before continuing. He took few, hesitant steps forward, coming to stand next to Remus. "I… it's already evening, and you didn't show up at the pub at the time we agreed to meet up."

"Oh. I forgot that we planned to meet up. There's so much to do here that it's easy to lose track of time. I'm sorry."

"I understand," said Peter. "I just got worried, so I decided to come by. Don't worry about it. What's that one's story?" He nodded towards Padfoot, who regarded him with cold eyes.

Remus sighed. "He's a rescue. He was kept in pretty bad conditions. Smart one, but full of trust issues. Has a nasty temper, too. I've been working on him, but honestly, I'm starting to wonder whether he'll ever make a safe pet. With the way he's been behaving lately, I wouldn't be surprised if he bit someone out of nowhere."

To his surprise, Peter chuckled. When Remus frowned at him, he shook his head quickly and said, "I swear, I wasn't laughing at his situation! It's tragic, sorry. You just gave a pretty fitting description about one asshole I know, human one I mean. I was laughing at _him_ , not… not at your dog. I swear."

The dog in the kennel closest to the door, an old greying labradoodle bitch with a heart of gold, was giving hopeful eyes to the stick that Peter kept swirling nervously in his hand.

"Right. Also, um, could you stop doing that?" Remus asked, pointing towards the stick. "It's giving Mathilda some false hopes that you're going to throw it for her."

The stick stilled in Peter's hand. The man coughed. "Oh. Of course."

"You're in a weird mood today," said Remus, which for some reason gave him an odd sense of déjà vu. He looked away from Peter and back to Padfoot.

Padfoot was back to looking at Remus. As Remus met his eyes, the dog growled. What am I going to do with you, thought Remus desperately.

"I have a confession, Remus."

Remus looked away from the dog. Peter was still standing next to him, and was looking down warily at him.

Remus felt a pang of pain. He was so _tired_ of everyone, dogs and people, looking at him like that. But he pushed down the feeling. He was just tired.

"What is it?" Remus asked.

Peter swallowed. "I have to tell someone. It's suffocating me."

"What is it?" Remus repeated.

"It's me, Remus. It's me." Peter laughed aloud. It was a joyless sound. "And this wasn't part of my plan. Any of this. But Sirius is so adamant about getting through to you, now that you're stuck here, and it's going to be sooner rather than later that he connects the dots. Realizes that you were never the traitor. I have to do something before it all blows up in my face." He sounded desperate.

"I don't understand." Remus looked away and shook his head. _Everything will be alright_ echoed inside his head. "Don't make any hasty decisions. Let's… you can help me walk a couple of the dogs, let's take them out for their evening walks, and you can tell me about it." He hesitated, then added, "Everything will be alright."

The sentence didn't sound genuine coming from his own mouth. Perhaps because he had never believed in such naive, foolhardy optimism.

"I'm inside your head. I can destroy you, easily, because I _know_ you, and perhaps that way everything will still work out in the end." Peter took a shaky breath and laughed nervously. Almost hysterically. "I'm sorry about this, Remus. I truly am. Please believe me that if I could have avoided this, I would have."

Peter raised the stick - no, not a stick, a wand, pointed it at Remus, and his lips started to form a familiar curse-

 _NO._

Remus threw himself and all his weight at Peter's legs and tackled him to the ground. The wand clattered as it flew from Peter's hand and hit the floor.

The dogs around them were going wild, barking and howling.

Remus saw Peter reaching towards the wand.

Remus lunged forward. He bit down on Peter's outstretched arm, _hard_.

He tasted blood. It only made him lock his jaws around the flesh tighter.

Peter was screaming, and then, suddenly, he was gone. Remus's face hit the floor painfully as he reeled from the sudden disappearance of the man beneath him.

Remus jumped up. The blood kept dripping from his jaws. He looked around wildly, searching for where Peter had disappeared.

The screaming hadn't stopped.

In the kennels, behind their bars, the other wolves were pacing wildly, throwing themselves against the bars with force, howling, mad from the scent of blood, trying to get out and join the hunt.

He had to get away.

Frantically Remus looked around, searching for a way to escape. His eyes stopped at the familiar big, black dog that was still standing in its kennel, behind the bars.

Peter's blood kept dripping from Remus's jaw. Padfoot was staring at him, looking horrified.

With one of those subtle, unnervingly unpleasant mental lurches that happen when the point of view on reality switches - when suddenly the two faces become the cup, or the old woman becomes the young lady - the meaning of those bars turned upside down in Remus's mind and he saw it all clearly.

It was not Padfoot but Remus who was locked away, in the same deadly space with…

 _..._ a Death Eater.

He had to get out of this cage. He couldn't think clearly, but he knew that the dog was the key.

The dog could help him. The dog could get him out of here.

Remus rushed towards the kennel's door. He tried to open the bolt, but his bloodied paws kept slipping on it.

' _Good boy, good boy,'_ purred Bellatrix Lestrange's voice inside his head, ' _Aren't you proud of the fine example you are setting for the others, Lupin!'_ Her cackle hurt Remus's ears.

Padfoot had come to the door. His eyes were wild and scared, as he grabbed the door handle on his own side between his teeth. In a futile attempt to help open the door, Padfoot started to pull and drag the handle with all his strength.

It was useless, but Remus knew that he couldn't give up. It was his only chance.

The bolt slipped and the door to the kennel flew open.

The kennel's outer wall was gone. Beyond it loomed the Forbidden Forest.

The dog gave him one triumphant look before darting to the forest. Remus followed.

' _Don't chase the dog! Stop! Come back, your job is not finished here!'_

 _Help me_ , he chanted inside his mind, his eyes desperately locked on the dog that was running ahead of him, weaving between the trees and jumping over the roots and rocks, the endless chant of _help me help help me help help me help_ almost drowning out the shrill screams and obscenities that were tearing and pulling at him inside his head.

The adrenaline was leaving his body, and he was cold and shaking, but the two of them kept running. Whenever Remus started to slow down, the dog turned back, and with harsh barks and painful, sharp nipping, bullied him relentlessly to keep going.

They kept running until Remus tumbled and couldn't get up anymore. He was beyond exhausted, shaking and cold, screams and howls still going on loudly inside his mind. The darkness engulfed him as he passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Being an Auror is dangerous. Remus had always known that, and he had accepted it long before he had signed up for the job. Sometimes the dangers came in forms of mind dulling paperwork and non-lethal papercuts, but yes, sometimes there were truly sticky situations. Having a quick wit and even quicker reflexes was necessary to survive to see another day.

Auror training had done a great job preparing him for both the physical and magical dangers of the job (there had even been a class on dealing with paper cuts on April 1st during his second year of training), although Remus sincerely believed that having been in the same year as the 'Marauders' at Hogwarts — with three years out of seven as a _prefect!_ — and _surviving_ the experience should have counted as an automatic Outstanding on 'Bombs and Explosives', 'Officer Survival', and 'Organized Crimes Investigation'.

As well as 'Corruption Within Organization', after Potter had been made Head Boy.

Still, Remus was bitter about one glaring lack in the curriculum: nobody had bothered to teach him even the bare basics of how to cope with unresolved sexual tension between him and his so-sexy-that-it-should-be-illegal partner.

It was a terrible oversight in Remus's opinion. He was certain that he couldn't be the only Auror dealing with this particular problem.

Remus couldn't imagine anything worse than having to be rescued like a bloody damsel in distress, especially when it had to be done by his Auror partner/crush/object of dirty fantasies/pain in the ass, who was probably never going to let him forget about this.

'Probably'. Scratch that.

Who was _definitely_ never going to let him forget about this.

"Remus?" bellowed Black from somewhere outside the dark dungeon cell. "Where are you?"

Remus had always sincerely suspected that Black had cheated his way through 'Stealth and Tracking'.

"I'm here," he shouted, despite how much he wanted to just crawl his way through the stone floor and hide from Black. Unfortunately that wouldn't do, since then Black would likely just run around the Manor like a headless chicken, screaming his way through it until he tripped over some Death Eaters and got caught as well.

Actually that might not have been that bad, thought Remus regretfully. At least then Black wouldn't have _all_ the teasing rights afterwards.

It was too late now, though, because Black had heard him and Remus could hear him muttering unlocking charms behind the door. The door banged open and Black rushed inside, his wand lit and lightening up the room.

"Thank fuck I found-", he started, but stopped short when he saw Remus. His eyes widened almost comically. "-you," he finished in almost a whisper.

"Good to see you, Black. My robe and wand, please," said Remus, with all the dignity that he could muster up under the circumstances, and nodded towards the locked chest in the corner. "And if you could help me out of these ropes, I'd be quite grateful."

"Er. Um. Yes." Black snapped his mouth shut and looked mortified, which did slightly help Remus's mood (at least he wasn't the only one here dying from embarrassment), but Black also wasn't moving to help him, which was not ideal since they _were_ both still inside the Manor full of Death Eaters.

"My robe and wand, _please_."

Black nodded sharply and, thank Merlin, turned away finally and went to open the chest. After few charms, the chest unlocked with a click, and Black reached inside. He pulled out the robe and frowned as he seemed to be looking closely at Remus's Auror badge.

Remus coughed pointedly. Black looked at him, then even more quickly looked away. He grabbed Remus's wand from the chest as well and then rose and walked over to Remus.

There was a horribly awkward, thick silence while Black helped him out of the ropes and back into a robe. Most of the time Remus was looking resolutely at the spot on opposite wall like it was the most fascinating thing ever.

When Remus finally had all his limbs free, his body covered, and he could stand up, Black coughed. "So. Glad you are alright." He gave a faint smirk. "Nice dungeon. Kinky." He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively, even though there was still a reminder of a faint blush on his cheeks.

"In your dreams," Remus muttered.

"Actually-," Black started, sounding quite a bit amused, but then paused to bit his lip. "Nevermind." His eyes were twinkling.

Remus ignored him. He turned his wand around in his hand, inspecting it for any possible damage. None that he could see. He tested out couple of small, simple spells, and they seemed to be working fine.

He was relieved. It felt good to be armed again.

"Why were you stuck in here? What happened?"

"I was a fool," Remus admitted. "I went out to check something that was bothering me about the case, after you had left for home, and they surprised me. Death Eaters. Seems like they decided to come check for any remaining evidence at the same time. They knocked me out and brought me here." He didn't bother to ask how Black had found him. All Aurors had tracking charms on their partners.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"What do you want to do?" said Black and glanced back at the door curiously. "Think we should investigate? See what we can find out here?"

It was then that Remus _remembered_.

"No. I've got all the intel we need from here. We need to get back to the headquarters," he said to Black. "Now."

Black quirked his eyebrow at him, but before he could say anything Remus grabbed his arm and side apparated them away.

* * *

"Blimey, warn the bloke next time," muttered Black when they appeared in their office.

Remus glanced at the clock on his table. Three o'clock in the morning.

"Sorry. But I've got something to show you, and it can't wait." He nodded towards their 'Case Wall'. It was covered with articles, photos, files, and reports regarding their latest case. All under heavy concealing charms of course, making everything visible only to them.

It was definitely more full than yesterday when Black had left the office to get home early. Remus had stayed late, organizing and reorganizing the mess of the notes and evidence and their multiple theories, not able to let go of the feeling that they were missing something.

Then the inspiration had hit him and he had made a bad, sleep deprived call to go back and check on the original crime scene.

He wasn't sure whether it had been good or bad luck that the Death Eaters had appeared, because even though he had been ambushed and kidnapped, which obviously was bad and amateurish of him, the whole fiasco had still enabled him to finally uncover the last piece of their puzzle.

Black whistled, looking impressed, as his eyes ran over the wall.

"It's missing something important," said Remus and rushed to his desk to rummage through his papers. Underneath a thick pile of witness reports he found the envelope with photographs… and _the_ picture that he had been looking for.

He took it out, walked briskly over to the wall, and planted the photo triumphantly under the headline 'Prime Suspects', and looked back at Black expectantly.

He didn't even try to hide his excitement. He suspected that he was probably looking quite loony, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Black's eyes widened as he saw the picture. " _Peter?"_ He stared at the photo of the shyly smiling man who had until now been regarded only as one of the witnesses to the crime. "Are you _sure?_ "

Remus nodded. "It's Pettigrew. I know that none of us suspected him, because he didn't seem to have a motive for it and there seemed to be nothing wrong with his alibi. But while they were hauling me to the dungeon I _saw_ him. He is not the brains of the operation, but he is _definitely_ part of the group."

Black was silent for a long time, his eyes jumping around the wall. He sneered. "It makes sense. That _rat_. I'm going to kill him."

"I think we'd get in too much trouble if we did that," said Remus, but he couldn't stop himself from smiling. He hadn't realized how much he had feared that Sirius wouldn't believe him, until he felt the relief wash over him. "But I agree on the sentiment. We have to find him and catch him. See what he knows."

Sirius's eyes darkened. "Fuck. We let him go. I _knew_ something fishy had happened while he was inside here, but we fucking let him go." He slammed his hand on the table. "That fucking liar! And bloody Prongs calling me paranoid. Paranoid my ass! We could have caught him!"

"It's okay," said Remus and stepped closer to him. He reached out and squeezed Sirius's arm. "We'll catch him." His grin widened so much that it hurt. "Padfoot. We cracked the case."

He couldn't quite bring himself to say that everything would be alright, because that would have been a lie, but he did feel that, maybe, possibly, hopefully, everything would be at least a little bit better soon.

Sirius looked at him, his face full of battling, unreadable emotions. Finally a smile broke through, a smile that grew slowly and made Remus's breath catch.

" _You_ cracked the case," said Sirius and raised his hand to stroke his cheek shakily before grabbing Remus's face between his hands. He looked at him with shining eyes, "you bloody brilliant, fucking fantastic-", and then he kissed him.

Remus kissed him back, eagerly, his hands coming up to wrap themselves around Sirius's back. Relief and love and lust were soaring in his veins.

"Sirius," Remus murmured against his lips. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this happy.

Sirius pulled back and his eyes roamed dazedly around Remus's face, hungrily taking in every inch. Sirius licked his lips, and then opened his mouth to say something just as his eyes dropped on the Auror badge on Remus's chest.

Sirius's smile faltered. "Right. Fuck." He took a breath. "We shouldn't."

"What?" Remus said and stared at him, and before he could stop himself he continued with a bewildered and frustrated, " _Why not?"_

Sirius looked pained. "Don't get me wrong. I _want to,_ bloody hell, of course I want to. But we can't. This is... I'm not gonna take advantage of you."

For a moment Sirius had managed to make Remus forget how bloody confusing, illogical and infuriating he could be. "Are you sure you weren't hit by Confundus charm on your way to that dungeon? Nobody is 'taking advantage' of anyone here, you _moron_."

Sirius groaned and dropped his head on Remus's shoulder. "Moony. Please. Don't make this harder than it is. We'll do this proper way when we've got you fixed."

Remus glared at the top of his head and didn't answer.

Sirius sighed. "Okay. Look. You've just spent Merlin knows how long trapped by those bloody Death Eaters in that goddamn dungeon. I've been out of my mind worrying, and you'll need time to recover. And there are bad guys who need to be caught. This is not the right time, _okay?_ "

"The bad guys could wait fifteen minutes," Remus muttered.

"I need to go back to tell Prongs about Peter," said Sirius miserably. "You know that every minute counts."

Remus sighed resignedly. "I know." It didn't mean he had to like it, though.

They stood there for a moment longer, Remus feeling Sirius's breathing against his neck getting slowly steadier, before Sirius sighed and pulled away reluctantly, taking a step back.

"I gotta go, Moony," he muttered apologetically.

Remembering that there was something else that he needed to talk with Sirius about before he left, Remus asked quickly, "Wait. Have you talked with Healer Evans?"

Sirius blinked. "About what?"

"Is she any closer to finding the cure for the victim?"

"The victim?" Sirius asked carefully.

Remus swallowed. It was hard to get the words out. "Of this case. That guy who fell into an unexplainable coma after the torture."

Sirius was silent for some time, his eyes roaming Remus's face. He stepped closer and raised his hand to caress Remus's neck before leaning in to give Remus a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. "She's getting closer," Sirius said quietly. "She said she had found something that sounded promising. She just wants to run some tests first, and they're going to take at least a couple of days. We gotta make sure it's safe."

"Thank you," said Remus, his voice breaking a bit, and then blinked. He was knackered. The case had been a bad one, but usually work didn't affect him this much. Usually he was able to keep the much needed emotional distance from the more gruesome details. He let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm knackered, sorry. We've got to focus on the case and leave worrying about that stuff to St. Mungo's. Can you take the information on Pettigrew to Moody? I've been up whole night, I think some sleep would do me good."

Sirius's face twitched. "Just how much do you…" He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Of course. I'll handle it from here. You go take some rest."

"You could come to my flat afterwards."

Sirius swallowed, looked down at his lips, and shook his head. "Moony. That wouldn't be a good idea."

"We don't have to do anything like _that_ ," Remus said. "I'd just rather not sleep alone." He didn't think he was going to be able to sleep at all, if he was alone. It had been a hell of a few days.

Sirius nodded after a moment. "Alright. I'll come back."

"Thanks."

Sirius stepped back in for one final brief kiss, and then finally disapparated away.

* * *

A small eternity later, or so it felt, Remus was turning restlessly in his bed, lying awake and unable to fall asleep despite feeling completely exhausted, when he heard the crack of someone apparating in his living room. The sound of nails clicking against the floor was loud in the silent apartment.

After a moment, Padfoot pushed open his bedroom door, slipped inside and jumped on the bed.

There were so many questions to be asked, so many things to be discussed, but they could wait.

With the dog curled against his side, Remus was finally able to fall asleep, listening to its steady heartbeats.


	5. Chapter 5

Remus woke up in the Hospital Wing.

The room was dim. Only a few weak rays of moonlight kept the room from complete darkness. The erratic cadence of rain hitting the windows was the only sound in the otherwise silent room.

Remus was lying in the same familiar bed that he had used as a student after the full moon.

Unlike back in those days, however, he wasn't feeling any post-moon pains and exhaustion. He threw his blanket aside and got up from the bed. He winced as his bare feet touched the cold floor.

He looked around the room. The other beds were empty.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the room for a second with its harsh brightness, and a few seconds later the thunder roared.

He had always enjoyed watching storms - from a safe distance and preferably with a warm cup of tea, of course. He walked to the windows. Even the thick walls and the glass panels weren't able to stop the smell of rain reaching him.

The full moon looked beautiful in the sky. He couldn't stop staring once he spotted it.

It didn't really look like much, he thought. Nearly the same as it would look tomorrow.

He heard footsteps behind him, followed by Sirius clearing his throat. "Moony. That's maybe not the healthiest thing for you to stare at."

"It feels weird to look at it," said Remus slowly, not able to take his eyes off the moon. He frowned. "Sirius. Am I going crazy? I should be a wolf now, shouldn't I?"

"Well, if you aren't crazy already, you __will__ be if you keep mooning about it," Sirius said impatiently.

A flicker of movement near the edge of Forbidden Forest caught Remus's attention. He squinted. It was hard to see from so far away, but… "Why are there people out there?"

Sirius grabbed his arm and pulled him harshly away from the window. He didn't let go until they were almost at the opposite wall. "Not our concern. I've got news for you."

Remus heard distant howling. He looked over his shoulder towards the window.

Sirius swore, grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "No, Moony. __Focus__. We did it. We're getting you out of here now."

"How?"

"I need a quill, ink, and a piece of parchment." Sirius looked at him like he was expecting him to summon them out of nowhere.

Remus frowned. "Well, there's usually some in the bedside tables."

"Excellent," Sirius said, and rushed to the nearest one to rummage through its drawers. In the second drawer, he found what he was looking for.

Sirius scrawled few lines of text on the parchment, threw the quill on the bed with ink splattering over the bedsheets, and rushed back to Remus. He thrust the parchment into his hand.

"Listen to me carefully. Very carefully." Sirius took hold of the back of his head, his fingers tight in his hair. Sirius leaned closer until their faces were merely inches away. His eyes were blazing. "I don't care what flimsy excuse you'll craft in your head to explain this away, but this is __important__. When you hear a bell ring, you focus on those words and read them aloud. You understand? When the bell rings. Not sooner, not later."

Remus nodded, and smiled faintly. "It's quite rude to crash in here in the middle of the night just to force me to participate in a prank. But fine. I'll do it."

A smile flickered on Sirius's lips, but only for a second. He looked at Remus solemnly, his muscles tight and tense. "Repeat to me what you need to do."

Remus rolled his eyes. "When the bell rings, I focus on the words, and read them aloud."

Sirius leaned in to kiss his forehead. "Good job, Moony," he murmured. "You can do it."

He let go, stepped back, and disappeared. Presumably under James's cloak.

Another howl echoed in the distance. Remus turned and started to walk back towards the windows.

Just as curiosity was getting the best of him, a deep, slow ringing of a bell started inside his head, the sound so loud and low that he could feel it drumming through his bones. He almost dropped the parchment in his hand out of shock.

Bloody hell. Sirius could have warned him.

But right, the prank. After one last wistful look towards the window, Remus raised the parchment and looked at it. He remembered Sirius's cryptic directions. He focused on the words and started chanting them aloud.

As he got to the end, he felt a pull. He felt like he was floating away as the Hospital Wing faded out of existence around him.

* * *

Remus woke up. For some time, he stayed in that hazy stage between sleep and wakefulness. Someone was stroking his hair gently.

Remus sighed contentedly and smiled. The hair stroking stopped.

Remus opened his eyes. The lights in the room were too bright and hurt his eyes. The ceiling and its shallow cracks were spinning slowly, hypnotizingly. It was making him sick, so he closed his eyes again.

He felt exhausted. His body ached everywhere.

It must have been a __very__ bad moon, he thought.

Someone said something, but the words were a blur and Remus couldn't make anything out of them. He drifted back into unconsciousness.

* * *

When Remus woke up again and opened his eyes, the room wasn't spinning anymore.

Sirius was sitting next to him on a strange bed, inside an unfamiliar yet cozy bedroom, looking down at him carefully.

"Hello," Sirius said quietly.

"Hi," Remus croaked, and winced.

The bedside table was loaded with various potions and bottles. There was also a glass of water, which Sirius reached to take. He offered it to Remus, who took it with a small, grateful smile.

"Feeling alright?" asked James from the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe, tapping his wand against his chin and looking oddly pensive. Tense.

Remus nodded. He gave the glass back to Sirius and their fingers brushed briefly. Sirius gave him a small, crooked smile.

Remus looked around the room. He couldn't recognize the place, nor remember how he had gotten there. "What's going on?" Remus asked.

"How much do you remember?" James asked slowly.

Remus frowned. He could remember the forest. He had been on a mission, at Dumbledore's request, living with the pack. But he wasn't supposed to talk about that to anyone, and the last memory he had from there - sitting around the campfire, listening to the fire crackling and watching the flames dancing in the night - didn't offer any explanations. "Not much at all. Why am I here?"

"Doesn't matter," Sirius said with an unreadable expression. He raised his hand to caress Remus's cheek. "It can wait. Fuck, I'm just so glad that you are finally here and alright."

James cleared his throat loudly. Sirius looked at him, and James shook his head at him. Sirius dropped his hand and scowled.

James put his wand in his pocket and walked over to the bed. He smiled fondly at Remus and ruffled his hair. "Good to have you back, Moony. Lily is probably losing her mind in the kitchen worrying. I'll go get her, and be right back."

"No, wait," Remus said and sat up. His muscles felt tense as though he hadn't used them for a while. "I'll come along."

Sirius helped him up from the bed, but Remus pushed his hands away when he had got himself standing. "I can walk on my own," he protested, even though his legs felt weak and he wasn't entirely sure that he could.

His words didn't stop Sirius from hovering near him all the way to the kitchen, though.

"Lily, look who's here," James announced loudly and cheerfully when they got to the kitchen. "The Sleeping Beauty has awoken."

Lily was sitting at the dining table. She looked like a mess - her eyes and nose were red and puffy. She had been crying, but when she saw Remus, a wave of relief washed over her and a wide, bright smile lightened up her face. "Remus!"

She jumped up from the table and ran to hug him. "I was so worried! I'm sorry, I couldn't stay to watch, I was so afraid that I had messed up the potion for good."

"Lils," Sirius said warningly.

"I know, I know. Oh Remus." She pulled back and looked at him. "Please tell me you're alright."

"Of course I am," said Remus and smiled faintly at Lily. "But can we perhaps sit down?" He was starting to feel quite dizzy and short of breath, even after such a short walk.

"Of course, I- I made some tea, I put some Calming Draught in it for you, just sit down-"

"Evans, I'm going to go fill the bathtub with that Draught and throw you in," said Sirius with an exasperated sigh and sat on a chair next to Remus. "Stop fretting. He's __fine__."

Lily gave a shaky laugh. "You're one to talk about fretting."

James poked Sirius sharply in the shoulder as he walked past him to the counter where the kettle and the mugs were. "Oi. It's Potter, not Evans," he said, with a smile tugging at his lips. "Stop seducing my wife with hot baths, you horny mutt."

"You have a bathtub?" asked Remus. He felt like he could use a long, warm bath after tea and figuring out what was going on. "And where are we, exactly?"

James nodded, grinning. "I'm sure Pads can volunteer to show you where the tub is."

Lily snorted. The two of them shared an amused look.

Sirius threw a dirty glare at them, and then said to Remus, "We are at the safe house. Things have changed quite a lot while you were staying in your dreamlands. It's dangerous out there, so don't even think about going outside."

"Sirius," said Lily in same warning tone that Sirius had used.

"We've gotta tell him about the situation in general," Sirius said flatly. "Otherwise he'll decide one morning that oh, hey, there's not enough books in this house. He'll go off without letting us know, and the next thing we hear is that someone has blasted him to pieces in Diagon Alley."

"That does sound like something to avoid," Remus said faintly.

There was a moment of silence. The others looked grim.

James poured tea for them all and brought the mugs to the table. "We'll go over precautions, but we'll leave other stuff for later," he declared. "As Pads said, the situation has changed. The war has escalated, and it's not safe out there anymore. No going out. Don't use your wand unless it's an emergency and you absolutely need to. Try to stay away from the windows. We've got protections on them, but better to be safe." He paused. "If you feel like anything is out of the ordinary, or like, um, something is very, very strange, like it shouldn't be, like, um-"

"If you feel crazy, tell one of us," said Sirius bluntly. "We've got stuff to help."

" _ _Sirius,__ " Lily groaned, but Remus could see that she was holding back a smile.

Remus was trying to wrap his head around it all. "Well, this sounds pretty weird," he joked weakly. "Not sure if I want to believe you or believe that I've already lost my mind."

Sirius gave him a hard glare. "No joking about it. If it feels overwhelming and you're losing it, you gotta speak up."

Remus swallowed and nodded. "But what makes you so worried that I might lose it?"

A brief, silent discussion seemed to take place between the other three, with raised eyebrows, frowns, small shrugs, worried glances.

James took his glasses off and fussed over them, wiping them clean with his sleeve. "You were on a secret Order mission that went wrong. Death Eaters caught you. We finally found you and rescued you, but you were in a bad state. I think that's enough for now."

"I can't remember any of it." Remus frowned. He thought over it, over the other missions that had gone wrong and of people who had returned badly shaken. Sometimes jumpy and afraid of their own shadows or, on the other extreme, suddenly no longer caring about anything anymore and throwing themselves in foolishly dangerous situations. "I was tortured?"

James hesitated. "Kind of."

"Kind of?"

Sirius glared at James, before looking Remus straight in the eye. "He means __yes__. Yes, you were." There was something familiar in his expression. In that twitch in the corner of his left eye, in the way his jaw was set. "Wrecked your mind. You know how Crucio works."

Remus's stomach dropped when he realised that Sirius used to make that face whenever Professor McGonagall roasted them about their alibis for pranks. 'We were all in the common room, Professor, __everyone__ can confirm that,' he'd yell stubbornly and truthfully, but omitting the fact that they had finally perfected their long range dung bomb detonators.

"And what else happened?" Remus asked, with a sick feeling of dread in his stomach.

"Enough," said Lily firmly. "Remus, drink your tea. Trust us, it's not anything you need to know right away."

"Agreed," Sirius said and stood up. "I'll go get that bath ready for you."

"I'll come help," James said quickly, and they left the kitchen before Remus could point out that preparing a bath hardly required two people.

Remus looked at Lily.

Lily smiled weakly and nodded towards Remus's cup. "Drink it."

"I can't rest if I just keep imagining what's making you lot fuss this much."

Lily bit her lip. "We were just worried about you. And we'll tell you the rest. But later. Don't think it's only for your sake. These last few weeks have been a nightmare for all of us."

Looking at Lily's tired face, Remus decided to let it go.

He drank his tea, which had turned cold. Lily graciously ignored how his hands kept shaking and how he splashed some of it onto the table.

* * *

After the bath Remus felt exhausted, even though he had only been awake for about an hour and all he had done was talk, drink some tea, and walk whatever small distances were required between rooms. He pulled on the bathrobe that James had found for him.

He couldn't quite yet wrap his head around it all. He knew that he should contact Dumbledore and talk with him about the mission. He should find out what happened to the other members of the pack.

But according to the others, he had been unconscious for weeks. Surely the Order could wait for a little longer.

Sirius was waiting for him outside the bathroom, leaning against the wall next to the door. "Good bath?" he asked with a small smile.

It felt weird being suddenly fussed over by Sirius again. Sirius hadn't looked him in the eye properly for what felt like months, and then he had woken up and found that Sirius was all over him again.

He had noticed a package of chocolate scented candles inside the bathroom cabinet. He had a suspicion that he knew who was guilty for providing them, too.

It was all quite overwhelming, but Remus wasn't going to complain. He was just confused, and afraid that Sirius would pull away again, without an explanation.

"Best I've had in a while," Remus said, and couldn't hold back a wide yawn. He closed the bathroom door and leaned against it. His legs felt shaky and he didn't yet trust them completely, but he tried to not let it show.

Sirius chuckled. "You gotta be kidding me."

Remus smiled tiredly. "No kidding."

Sirius looked at him fondly and shook his head. "The Sleeping Beauty indeed." Sirius's eyes roamed slowly over his face in a way that made Remus's blood heat up.

Remus could feel himself blushing. He wondered what Prongs would say if he went to knock on his door to tell him that he needed something to make hallucinations of Sirius go away, because Sirius blatantly flirting with him was definitely __strange__ , and something that had certainly only happened before in some embarrassing dreams that had refused to listen to the memo of 'inappropriate feelings for your best mate are best to be buried and forgotten'.

The problem was that he rather liked this particular hallucination and didn't want it to go away.

Remus coughed awkwardly, rolled his eyes and scoffed. He tried to think of a witty comeback, or anything at all to say, but he felt tired and there was an odd ringing in his ears, and he couldn't quite gather his thoughts.

Sirius's smile grew wicked.

Remus just didn't know what to do about it all. It was making his head hurt, all the fussing and flirting, and teasing remarks coming from Lily and James. It was all such a sudden change. The last time they had met, Sirius had been all thinly veiled sneers, weird side remarks, and sulky silences, and had left Remus brooding about it miserably all through the night.

They had said that things out there had changed quite a lot, but honestly, Remus felt that this change in Sirius's attitude right here was something a lot harder to wrap his head around.

Sirius's eyes twinkled with mischief and he leaned closer to Remus. "So. Remember any good dreams from these last few weeks?"

"Um, no."

"Pity."

"Why?"

Sirius was looking at him with an odd expression. Finally he murmured, "Maybe I should remind you," and stepped closer.

Sirius raised his hand and his fingertips brushed against Remus's cheek, making his breath hitch. Sirius's eyes dropped to Remus's lips, and he paused. Remus could see him swallow, his eyes darkening.

If this __was__ a hallucination and he had truly gone crazy, Remus decided that he couldn't care less. He was more than happy to trade his mental health for it.

"Maybe you should," Remus whispered.

Sirius's eyes, dark and wide and intense, rose to meet Remus's.

Remus wasn't sure which one of them crossed that last distance, but suddenly Sirius's hands were cupping his head and his long fingers were tangled in Remus's hair, still wet from the bath; Sirius's mouth was on his, hot and demanding; Remus's own hands were gripping Sirius's waist, pulling him closer.

He felt Sirius hard against his thigh, and he heard himself moan.

Remus was painfully aware that he only had a loosely tied belt keeping the flimsy bathrobe covering his naked body, and if they kept to this, it was only a matter of the time before the belt would give out.

It felt good, so good, but kissing was making breathing rather difficult. His knees were starting to tremble and he felt faint and short of breath, and not only in a mindblowing _'_ _ _oh Merlin this is really happening, I'm kissing Sirius!'__ way.

Remus raised his hand to Sirius's chest and pushed at him gently. Sirius pulled away, frowning and looking confused. Remus let his hand stay on his chest, his fingers playing slowly with the thin cloth between their skins.

"I don't understand," Remus said softly and smiled uncertainly, his eyes running over Sirius's face searchingly. "What has changed...?"

He wasn't sure how he'd continue the sentence. 'What has changed to make you look at me like that', perhaps, or 'what has changed to make you look me in the eye again without anger'.

Merlin, he was so confused.

Sirius smiled in an odd way, his eyes soft. "You aren't the traitor."

It took a moment for Remus's brain to process the words.

Remus's smile fell. He dropped his hand from Sirius's chest. He felt like a splash of cold water had hit his face. "What?"

Sirius's eyes widened. "That's… We should talk about it later."

Pieces of a puzzle - suspicious glares, hurtful words - started to gather in his mind and form a nasty picture. He pushed at Sirius, making him take a stumbling step back.

"No, I think I want to talk about it now," said Remus tersely. "Traitor?"

Sirius looked nervous. "We really should talk about it later. When you have rested and recovered. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it." After many years, 'sorry' had become a throwaway word for Sirius, but now he genuinely looked like he meant it. Sirius smiled weakly and said, "I'm trying to learn 'The Art of Not Triggering Moony', as Prongs put it."

Remus's mouth tightened. "I don't think it's going well."

The hallway was painfully silent for a long, heavy moment.

Remus crossed his arms tightly across his chest. It felt safe, like he was hugging himself, and steeling for whatever would come next. It also hid how much his hands were shaking. "You've thought of me as a traitor? What do you even mean by that?"

"Moony," Sirius started and sighed. "I was bloody stupid, okay?"

"You should know that I would __never__ -" Remus started and then had to pause, because it was too much. He turned his head away from Sirius. He felt sick. Dizzy.

"I should have known," agreed Sirius. "You are right. It's just… You were never around-"

"I was working for the Order!"

"I know," said Sirius in a small voice. "I just mean that because you were never around, it was easy to start to imagine stuff. We learnt that someone had been leaking information, and it had to be one of-" Sirius paused. "Well. One of the Order," he continued awkwardly.

"And your mind just jumped straight to me? Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Sirius groaned. "It wasn't like that, Moony! But anyways. We found out who the real spy was."

Remus looked at him. He thought through all the familiar faces. "Who?"

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Nobody important." He was staring Remus straight in the eye, the corner of his eye twitching, his jaw set.

Remus was done. He looked away from Sirius. He pushed himself away from the door and started to walk towards the bedroom where he had woken up.

"Moony, wait!" said Sirius. "This wasn't supposed to go like this."

Remus stopped, and turned back. "How __was__ it supposed to go?"

Sirius didn't say anything. His gaze had fell downwards, and Remus realised that his bathrobe's belt had finally given out on him, leaving his bathrobe not hiding much at all.

With embarrassment and boiling anger mixed with hurt, Remus tugged sharply at the belt, trying to tie it up, but his hands were shaking too much. He let it be, swearing under his breath, and turned away again.

He stumbled, and had to support himself against the wall with his hand.

His head was spinning. The lights in the hallway were starting to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeats. It was making him feel even more sick. He closed his eyes.

Suddenly Sirius was by his side, grabbing hold of him under his armpits, holding him up and stopping him from falling to the floor. Remus tried to snap at him, to tell him to fuck off, but his tongue felt thick and clumsy and he couldn't get any words out.

 _"_ _ _JAMES!"__

Remus winced at the loud yell right next to his ear, and then passed out.


	6. Chapter 6

' _Don't chase the dog! Stop! Come back, your job is not finished here!'_

Remus ignored the voice and kept running through the forest with the dog. He lost sight of the dog for a moment, and then suddenly someone was holding him tight in their arms. He was shaking, sobbing, and a stream of words was coming out of his mouth that even he himself couldn't follow, and Sirius was trying to speak over him, "-calm down, Moony, you're safe, everything is fine-".

He felt claustrophobic. His mouth was full of blood and bits of human flesh, and he needed to get out. He had to get away from them. He started to kick and thrash, and he bit Sirius's shoulder through the robe.

Sirius yelled and swore, and wrestled with him to pin him down.

" _Sirius, don't hurt him!"_ screamed Lily.

* * *

Remus woke up in a cold sweat. The dream had been a blur of pain and blood and screams and vague, scattered visions. It took him a moment to reorient himself, to remember where he was.

Sirius was speaking feverishly, in a loud voice. "- and we _need_ to find him. We have time to do it now that we aren't so busy figuring out a way to bring back Moony. I can go back to check out his parents' place again, see if I can find anything."

Sirius was pacing back and forth in the room, looking like a caged, frustrated animal. James was leaning against the wall next to the door, his face stoney and eyes following Sirius. They were too distracted to notice that he had woke up.

Sirius continued, "You and Lils can contact people, see if anyone has seen him. Just don't be obvious about it, we gotta find him before he knows we suspect him. We can set up-"

"Pads," said James. " _No_. There's more important stuff to do."

Sirius scoffed, and continued stubbornly, "If Moony could remember, he would tell you to stop being a naive plonker, and we could-"

"Please tell me you haven't been sprouting your stupid, delusional theories as truth to him," snapped James.

"It's not just my 'stupid theory'. If you call me _paranoid_ one more fucking time-"

"But for Merlin's sake, Sirius, you _have_ been paranoid," stated James with an unrelenting, hard voice. "First you lash out at Lily and threaten her. Why? Because her friendship with Snape _years ago_ obviously made her a secret Death Eater sympathizer. Then when you finally believe she wants nothing to do with them, which should have been fucking _obvious_ since it was one of the reasons she ended that friendship in the first place, you start going on about _Moony_ being the traitor. And now suddenly you try to tell me it's been _Peter_ all this time?"

James shook his head, took a deep breath, and continued, "Sirius, _listen to yourself_. It's not _evidence_ if Remus says something vague to you in his dream, especially while he's still confused. It was a dream. Sometimes dreams don't mean anything, Pads."

Had Remus been talking nonsense in his sleep? The way James had worded it sounded odd.

And what the fuck, Sirius had meant _Peter_ when he had been talking about the traitor?

Remus had to agree with James. This sounded mad. The look on Sirius's face made him too scared to sit up and voice his opinion aloud, though.

"I know that I'm right," Sirius growled.

"You _want_ to believe you are right, and that's it," said James. "Because according to _you,_ one of us has to be the traitor, and there can be no other explanation. You have some vague proof that points to Peter instead of Remus, and you _want_ to believe it. Doesn't make it real."

Sirius was so still that Remus feared he would explode from rage. Instead, after a tense moment, he turned away sharply and stomped out of the room. There was a loud bang from the hallway when a door was slammed shut.

James stayed where he was, his face set and unapologetic.

Remus sat up. It seemed like it was finally safe to do.

James looked at him, groaned, and ran his fingers through his hair. "Sorry Moons. Didn't mean to wake you up with our domestics."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Please don't break up. What would happen to us children?"

James snorted, walked over to the bed, and sat down at the edge. "You gave us a scare yesterday. Feeling alright?"

"Yesterday?"

"You don't remember passing out in the hallway? You woke up after we hauled you to bed, but you were pretty out of it and fell asleep soon after. We decided to let you rest."

Remus prodded at his memories. The bath, the hallway… Sirius…

James smirked. "Awh, what's making you blush so prettily?"

Remus shot him a glare. "You, of course. What were you two arguing about?"

"Someone is changing the topic," said James in a sing-song voice and ruffled his hair. "Someone is hiding something."

Remus swat his hand away. "You mentioned Peter..?"

James's smirk fell and he sighed. "Pads thinks that Peter is a Death Eater." James rolled his eyes. "Or is helping them."

"What? _Peter?"_

"Exactly. Don't worry about it, it's not true. He just gets these crazy ideas sometimes. You know him."

"Why does he think so?"

James groaned. "Because he is a paranoid mutt who has issues? Don't ask me what's going on inside his head. It's worse because there _is_ some truth in that idea. Someone has been leaking information in the Order, but Pads is now set on this idea that it _has_ to be one of us. He's just taking turns in suspecting anyone and everyone around him."

Remus didn't point out that apparently Sirius had never lost faith with _one_ person. It did hurt that that person hadn't been him, but he pushed that jealousy down. He knew he wasn't James.

Still, selfishly he felt good about what he had heard. It helped to know that Sirius had been lashing out at almost everyone, and not just at him.

Remus looked at James. "What about you? Who do you think is leaking the information? If you don't think it's Peter, then I hope that doesn't mean you think it's-"

James's glare made him stop and shut his mouth.

"Don't be ridiculous. _I_ believe that none of us would ever betray the others," declared James angrily. "You know how Pads can get, though, and trust me, this war has been taking its toll on him the hard way. But it'll only make it worse if we play along with his delusions. You should have heard his drunken rant a few weeks ago about how Dumbledore is actually playing us all and wants to lose this war."

Remus felt guilty about his earlier selfish relief over Sirius lashing out at everybody. It sounded like it wasn't just Remus that they had to be on the lookout for losing it.

James sighed tiredly. "But enough of the bloody mutt. Let's go eat."

* * *

Sirius was in the kitchen when they got there, preparing sandwiches on two plates. When they entered the room, he gave them a quick sideways glare, but didn't acknowledge them otherwise.

Remus sat down on the other side of the table.

He felt physically better than yesterday, but he missed that simple moment just after waking up for the first time. It seemed like the longer he was awake, the more the heavy complexities of the real world were crashing on him.

"So, not done with your temper tantrum yet?" James asked Sirius, smiling so cheerfully and annoyingly that Remus was surprised that Sirius didn't punch him.

Sirius ignored James. Instead he shoved a plate with a couple of sandwiches in front of Remus, said tersely, "Eat," and then sat down opposite from him to eat his own sandwiches, staring moodily towards the window to avoid making eye contact.

Remus looked down at his plate.

"Your boyfriend is a prat," muttered James to him as he prepared his own sandwiches.

"He's not…" Remus started, but then stopped.

Sirius stayed silent and continued to chew on his own sandwich, ignoring them.

Remus sighed. "Just shut the fuck up, Prongs." He started to eat.

He was surprised that it tasted like a good, simple sandwich, and not like the complex mess of infuriating, battling emotions he had whirling inside him for its maker.

Remus was grateful that James shut his mouth and stopped needling Sirius.

After James left the room, taking his food with him, Sirius finally acknowledged Remus again with a quick, unreadable glance towards him. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

Remus chewed on a bite slowly, before answering. "I overheard you two arguing. About Peter."

Sirius scowled. "Prongs is too trusting for his own good."

Remus didn't know how to disagree without making Sirius explode.

Sirius noticed, and said darkly, "It's true. I might have been stupid before, but it's true this time. It's Peter."

"It just seems... a bit far-fetched. I mean… c'mon, Pads, you're talking about _Wormtail."_

"I know," said Sirius. He looked thoughtful for a while, and then said, "Look. While you were in the coma, we figured out a way to keep you company inside your dreams."

Remus stared at him. " _What?"_

"One day Peter came out, and well, it was clear that something bad had happened during his visit. James thought that he had just got the bad end of one of your nightmares, but I thought there had to be more to it. It was suspicious, and it was clear he was hiding something. "

Remus's head was reeling. "Can we go back to that part about you lot invading my mind?"

"Then the next time I visited you, it was… It was a brilliant dream, we were Auror partners, and you dragged me into our office and said that you had figured out who the bad guy was. You told me it was Peter." Sirius looked at him, a smile tugging at his seemed like he was going to say something, but changed his mind. He bit his lip and continued, "I think it was your way to let me know about what you knew. It's too bad that you don't remember anything from before, but at least you managed to tell me somehow before losing your memories."

Remus's mind was still focused on the earlier part of the story. "That's a pretty big breach of privacy, you know."

"What? But we had to-" Sirius said, frowning. "Oh. The visiting your dreams?" He looked surprised and shrugged nonchalantly, like he hadn't even considered the ethical implications of it. "We thought it'd be good for you, not having to be alone all the time. And we hoped you'd be able to help us help you. But mostly, it was just to keep you company."

Remus didn't know whether he was more touched by the gesture, or creeped out by the thought of the others romping around uninvited inside his subconscious mind.

Then the implications of _Sirius visiting his dreams_ suddenly hit him hard, as well as his words from yesterday.

"'Remember any good dreams?'" he quoted and stared at Sirius.

Sirius blanched. "No, Moony, I swear, nothing- nothing happened. I- I mean. We kissed, er, after cracking the Peter case, but I stopped it. It would have been wrong."

"Good to know that you have at least some sense in your thick head," Remus muttered. His cheeks burned as he avoided looking at Sirius.

"Not that dream-you was happy about stopping. And yes, my head is actually pretty nice and th-" Remus shot him a glare. "Okay! Okay, shutting up. Sorry!"

There was an awkward silent for some time. Remus spent it apologizing to his veins and heart for ever befriending the Marauders. His life could have been so much simpler, and easier on his blood pressure.

Sirius cleared his throat. "Anyway. Peter."

"So. That's your big theory."

Sirius's expression darkened. "I don't care if you lot believe I've gone nuts. Just promise me that if you see that rat, you'll stun him. Disarm him. Don't take any risks. I _know_ I'm right this time."

Remus remembered the arguing he had overheard. He remembered James's blunt words. He couldn't bring himself to repeat any of them. "I promise I won't trust him blindly," he said to Sirius. He figured he could humour Sirius for that much.

"Good. I listened to you when I thought you were nuts, you owe me the same."

To Remus, that sounded like the perfect way to spiral them both down into the depths of madness, to believe and build on each other's fears and delusions. But there was such desperation behind Sirius's anger that Remus couldn't find the strength to say no to him. "I will, don't worry," he said and sent apologies in his mind to James.

Some of the tension in Sirius's muscles seemed to loosen. "Good." He rose up from his chair, and turned to leave the kitchen. "I have to go check out few things. See if I can find that rat."

"Be careful," said Remus, and Sirius stopped at the doorway.

"I always am," said Sirius with a crooked smile. "And when I get back, we should talk about the other thing."

"The other thing?" asked Remus, before it clicked in his brain.

Sirius looked at him with an odd expression. Then he shrugged, his face a neutral wall hiding his emotions, and said in a tone more fitting of conversations about the weather, "That I love you," and left the kitchen.

Remus didn't know whether to laugh or cry, as he was left alone in the kitchen. Fucking _Sirius._

He settled on looking down at the crumbs on his plate, with a smile which he was certain looked absolutely ridiculous.

He heard Sirius and Lily talk in the living room, though he was not able to make sense of their words, before the front door opened and closed as Sirius left. Soon after, Lily came into kitchen.

They talked about the bad weather outside and what to have for the dinner and such, but Remus's mind was elsewhere.

* * *

Hours later, Sirius came back in time for dinner, looking gloomy and disappointed, his robes covered in mud. He went straight to the bath.

Remus was in the kitchen peeling the potatoes. For a moment, Remus entertained the thought of following him, but decided not to. Their interactions had been so stormy lately that ensuring full stomachs before any more important conversations seemed wise.

The mealtime was tense. Sirius clearly didn't want to talk about where he had been or what he had been doing, and nobody wanted to ask. James was ignoring Sirius, and Sirius was ignoring everyone.

"Good soup," said Lily.

Remus and James muttered their agreements, and then the table fell to silence again.

It was awkward. Remus found himself yearning for something to distract himself from it all, especially his whirling thoughts regarding Sirius. He looked around for a newspaper. The Daily Prophet's journalistic quality was more than questionable, but he could use its crosswords now. Maybe he could even take a peek at what was happening outside in the world.

He couldn't see any papers anywhere, not laying around on counters or tables. He frowned. He would have thought that the others would be keen on keeping on top of the news, but now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any of them reading the papers.

"Has the Prophet gone out of business?" he asked casually, and took another spoonful of his soup. He gave a glance around the table, and caught the shared, quick look between James and Lily.

"I wish," Sirius muttered his first words after returning, keeping eyes on his food. "Garbage, all of it." He stabbed angrily through a piece of potato with his spoon, splitting it in half.

"We canceled the subscription," said Lily, but didn't meet Remus's eyes. "We didn't want to continue to support them."

"How do you get any news then?"

Sirius dropped his spoon with a clang and crossed his arms. "We should fucking tell him the rest."

"Sirius," said James warningly.

"We can't wait forever. It's not _right._ He deserves to know," Sirius said angrily. "I'm bloody tired of talking in riddles."

"Tough. He deserves to know when he is _ready_ ," said James.

" _He_ happens to be right here," Remus pointed out sharply. "What is it?"

Sirius turned to look at him and opened his mouth, but Lily pointed his finger at him angrily and said, " _No,_ Sirius _._ "

"I'm not made out of glass," Remus said and glared at Lily.

"You aren't," said Lily, "but James already had to Obliviate you once because you couldn't handle your memories. So don't you start on me." She gave Remus a stern, yet sympathetic look.

"Obliviated? _When?_ "

"After you woke up first time," said Sirius. He scoffed when Lily gave him a glare. "Evans, _piss off_. We should tell him before he finds out everything from somewhere else. He is as ready as he will be. And if not, then fine, James can just Obliviate him again if he needs to. Besides, I should be the one to tell him. _I_ was there and _I_ got him out."

It was disconcerting how casual they were about messing with his head. First the dreams and now this. "When _what_ happened? Can you please stop talking in circles?"

"And you did _such_ a good job not making it worse when he was losing it, _right?"_ Lily snapped, with her eyes still on Sirius.

"I was stopping him from hurting himself!" yelled Sirius.

James groaned. "I think you're both doing just a _fantastic_ job making sure that this conversation is done in a nice, calm manner." He earned glares from both Lily and Sirius, which he ignored. " _I_ should tell him, and you two should get the fuck out of here until I've done it, because neither of you are able to keep a cool head and you know it."

Sirius scowled. "He'll freak out if you tell him and it goes bad while I'm not here."

Which was a pretty big load of bullshit from Sirius, in Remus's opinion, after being the one who kept freaking him out the most, with kisses and random blurtings and love confessions. "I'm still _here."_

Sirius scowled, pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. He turned into Padfoot and gave James a stubborn glare.

After a short staring contest James said, " _Fine_."

Lily pursed her lips. James looked at her pleadingly.

"Fine," huffed Lily. "Too bad I wasn't a reckless prat in school and didn't spend my time learning how to turn into an animal."

James smiled apologetically. "Can you get the potions?"

* * *

In the end, they moved to the bedroom. James joked that they needed firewhiskey rather than Calming Draught, to which Lily snapped that she had poured all of Sirius's stash down the drain the other day and she'd do the same again if she found any more in the house.

After Remus had drunk the potion, Lily hugged him tightly, murmured "We all love you" in his ear, and then left the room to check on the protective charms around the house.

Remus sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and Sirius as Padfoot jumped on the bed next to him, laying his head on top of Remus's thighs. James sat down at the end of the bed.

James took a deep breath, and looked away. "From what we have been able to piece together, from various sources, you had been on a mission for Dumbledore. Gaining the werewolves' trust."

Remus remembered that, although it felt like it had all happened a lifetime or several ago. He nodded slowly. He started to pet Padfoot's thick fur, to calm himself, as he had done so often when Padfoot had stayed with him after the full moon. The familiarity of it was comforting as he steeled himself to hear the story.

"Apparently your mission had been going a little too well. Some of the pack had started to listen to you, but there was this, this leader of the pack? Greyback? He made a deal behind your back with the Death Eaters. They… ambushed you lot a week or so before the full moon. We still haven't uncovered where exactly they kept you during the week. Or what they were doing with you."

Remus had a foreboding feeling when he nodded at James to continue.

"To keep it short and simple, you lot were fed this experimental potion. Something that let you keep most of your human mind during the full moon, which in turn made it possible for Death Eaters to take control of your minds with Imperius."

Padfoot gave a small yelp, and Remus quickly loosened his too tight grip on his fur. "Sorry," he murmured to him. Padfoot nuzzled his hand, and Remus kept stroking his head with shaking hands.

"We think they wanted to make you and the others an example, as well as show the world some fear." James swallowed. "We got a Patronus about what was happening, and rushed there with the rest of the Order. It was chaos, it- You can thank Pads for getting you out of there alive."

James paused and shook his head at Padfoot, his expression both fond and exasperated. "He lost his mind when we spotted you. Turned into Padfoot, ran to you, not minding that the Death Eaters were just around the corner and Aurors had started to Apparate. Tackled you to the ground." He fell silent. "One moment you two were fighting, and it was fucking terrifying, then Pads ran into the forest before I could get to you two, and you followed him. I had to trust that he knew what he was doing and would get you away, because there was still fighting going on everywhere. The other wolves had been released, and I had to stay behind to help."

Remus didn't want to ask. He felt faint. Sick. He had to ask. "Did I… bite someone?"

It was a stupid question. An obvious one. Of course he had. But he couldn't voice the real question. He couldn't ask aloud, 'Did I kill someone?' nor 'How _many_ did I kill?'

He knew his friends hadn't fretted about something harmless, like him finding out about frightening a few people. And the Aurors or the Order couldn't have gotten there instantly.

"No one," James said sharply.

Remus gave him disbelieving look.

"You were under Imperio, after a week of experiencing who knows what and after being drugged with some fucking potion that was messing with your condition. You had no chance in hell fighting against the curse alone, and it was a miracle that even Pads was able to snap you out of it enough to drag you away," James said, looking him straight in the eye. " _You_ didn't harm anyone. _Death Eaters_ did."

Remus couldn't look him in the eye. He could see that James believed his own words. Remus wasn't so sure that _he_ could see it that way.

Padfoot was watching him carefully, his head still in Remus's lap.

"What happened to the pack?" Remus asked in small voice.

James hesitated, but finally answered, "Most of them died. A couple were caught alive. There's going to be a public execution next week. Which we think is the worst possible thing for the Ministry to do, because it'll leave many with no choice but to follow You-Know-Who. It's quite probable that Death Eaters have been pulling strings to make the execution happen for exactly that reason. We… we are trying to figure out a way to rescue them."

Remus thought about the desperate faces, the young and the old. He had been sent to give them _hope,_ not death.

"Are you alright?" James asked.

Remus didn't know. He kept his eyes on Padfoot. Focused on him. He scratched him behind the ear, and gave a quiet snort as Padfoot leaned his head against his hand and kicked his hind leg.

"Remus?"

He startled. "What?"

"Everything okay?"

Right. James had asked him a question. "Yeah."

"We figured that knowing about it all shouldn't be as bad as actually remembering it, but we still wanted to give you some time to first recover from… from it all."

Remus nodded. He agreed. He couldn't imagine dealing with remembering the horror of it all. But he had always had quite a vivid imagination, so knowing about it meant that he could imagine it and-

Padfoot nipped gently at his wrist and pulled him back from his thoughts. Remus closed his eyes and burrowed his fingers deep in the black fur and breathed. In. Out. "You said that you had to Obliviate me?"

"Yeah. You… you woke up like it was still fresh in your mind. At first you appeared to be okay, or like, of course you weren't _fine_ , but it seemed like you were going to be able to cope with it, but then- It scared us. We were afraid you wouldn't recover at all. We just hadn't expected that, especially since inside your dreams you had appeared mostly normal." James winced. "Ah. Right. Think we should talk about that too."

"Sirius told me already."

James glared at Padfoot. "You bastard. You agreed yesterday that we'd _wait_ before dropping bombs on him. Have you done _anything_ but drop shock bombs on him after that?"

Padfoot shot a guilty look towards James.

"Such a bad dog," muttered James. He sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. "Well. Anyway. We hadn't prepared for you losing it that bad and- You were so out of it. You don't need to know all the details. Just trust me that it was bad. I had to do something."

"Thanks," Remus said.

They sat there in silence for some time, Padfoot's heavy head on top of his thighs and the thick fur between his fingers like a calming anchor to the world.

"You think you'll be alright?" asked James.

Remus nodded. If anything, he felt numb.

James stood up. "Right. I'll go see Lily. Pads, come get me if…" He paused, hesitated.

"He will," said Remus. "Don't worry. I'm okay."

James looked at him solemnly. "It was not your fault. Remember that."

"Of course," said Remus hollowly.

James looked at him with exasperation, before looking down at Padfoot. He ruffled the dog's fur, and muttered, "Your boyfriend is a prat. Take care of him."

Padfoot thumped his tail few times against the bed, and James left the room, shaking his head.

In the quiet of the room, Remus closed his eyes. A big part of him wanted to ask Sirius to go get James back, to ask to be Obliviated again. He could feel the pressure building behind his eyes, and he fought against the tears.

He didn't deserve to forget. He had failed his mission. He hadn't been careful enough.

How many had he killed, not only with his own teeth, but by his failure to take Greyback seriously enough?

He felt Padfoot shift beside him back to Sirius. He felt the fingers caress his cheek, running through his hair, and then soft, brief kisses against his cheeks, taking away the tears that had silently started to run despite his efforts to keep them in.

Sirius had been there and seen it all, thought Remus, and wanted to hide himself away.

"Stop thinking about it," murmured Sirius. "It happened, but you gotta let go of it. Stop poking and looking at it. You're just hurting yourself."

"I can't," whispered Remus.

"You can," said Sirius quietly, and pulled him into a warm embrace. "You have to."

He couldn't stop the tears, but Sirius kept kissing them away.

* * *

They stayed in bed, the light behind the curtains turning dark as the evening progressed into night. Remus's tears had stopped, but they didn't talk about the war or the traitors, or about the grim, dark world waiting for them outside the safe walls of their room.

For a few hours they took comfort in each other, in their living bodies, and Remus let go of his pain.

When they talked, they talked about the dreams. They weaved together stories to make each other smile.

They talked about the garden they'd make one day, about the coffee shop James had declared to Sirius he was going to fund one day. They talked about becoming the best private detectives the Muggle world had ever known, solving crimes with the help of magic and Padfoot's nose.

They talked about running away, about countless other lives they could be living together tomorrow somewhere else, but both of them knew that they would stay and fight.

Soon, the morning would come again, but they had each other, and their dreams, to help them cope with the upcoming storms.


	7. Epilogue

EPILOGUE: ONE WEEK LATER

* * *

They had drawn a large map of Hogsmeade. It was taped to one of the walls, with nine mirrors hanging on nails around it, placed in precise positions. Remus was standing in front of the wall, monitoring the village through the mirrors.

It was dark, a night before the full moon, but everything seemed calm and quiet. The execution platform built at the edge of the village was guarded by a pair of Aurors.

"But Sirius, I'm only trying to help you," said Lily in an innocent voice, leaning against the doorway. "What would be a better rat trap than a cat?"

"Lots of things," said Sirius, from where he was laying on top of the bed that had become Remus's-and-Sirius's. "An owl, a mink, a terrier."

"We've got enough canines in this house," said James sternly from the floor, where he was going through the notes.

Remus wasn't sure he believed Sirius's theory of 'Peter the traitor', but none of them could argue against Sirius's point that Wormtail had disappeared, and that nobody in the Order had heard of him or his whereabouts for a week.

'Displeased his new master and was turned into a rat pie,' Sirius had declared one evening, but shut his mouth when James said that he didn't want to listen to that kind of talk as long as there was a good chance that Peter was innocent and had been captured.

So, they were still searching for Peter. Remus hoped that despite Sirius's misgivings, they would find him alive and well, and innocent.

But for now they had to concentrate on something that they had a good chance of solving. Tomorrow would be the day they'd attempt to rescue the remaining members of the werewolf pack.

Remus looked at the map and frowned. So many things about the plan could go wrong.

"Everything is going to be alright," said James. Remus turned to see James looking towards him and the wall. "We'll just stick to the plan. We'll save them, and everything will be okay."

"Yeah," agreed Sirius hollowly.

"Hopefully," said Remus hesitantly.

"No, it's not going to be alright," said Lily.

They all turned to look at her.

She looked back at them. "Let's stop pretending. Everything _is_ going to be awful, even if we succeed. But we are going to keep fighting against it."

There was a moment of silence.

"I love you, Lils," said Sirius with a huge smile.

Lily batted her eyelashes at him.

James rolled his eyes, but a smile was tugging at his lips. "You two are awful. I'm trying to keep the mood up, and one of you is always ruining the effort. Go get a room. I'm running away with Moons. He's the cutest one anyway."

"I don't think I'm up for that much running yet, Prongs. We'd have to go rather far for these two to not catch us."

"Ugh, not you too!"

Sirius and Lily snickered.

* * *

Lily was right. Everything was not alright, and wasn't going to be alright for a good while. But they were alive and fighting.

Remus had once said that his perfect world would be one where he never had to be alone, never without his friends. He hadn't gotten that wish in any of those dream ways that he had talked about with Sirius, but still, he _had_ gotten it, and as they continued to refine their plans, he found himself happy and full of purpose in a grim, dark way.

They were going to keep fighting as long as they had to. Together.


End file.
